Highway Hypnosis

My first really long road trip was to Fort McMurray as a teen-ager.  My dad was a high school chemistry and physics teacher, and the ATA Science Council was meeting with Syncrude for a two day conference.  We lived in Tofield, 40 minutes east of Edmonton, and Dad decided to leave for Fort Mac on Friday right after school.  He brought me along to ride shotgun and prevent highway hypnosis.  Back then, in the seventies, it was a single highway, and I remember that as the sun set, the road looked like a long, unending tunnel with boreal forest rising up on either side.  It was a long journey and we were relieved when we finally reached our hotel.

I felt a strong sense of pride that Dad thought I was ready to handle the responsibility of helping him stay awake on the trip.  But it was a lot longer than I thought, and we were both relieved to finally pull into the little motel where we spent the weekend.

Now of course there are rumble strips and the highway is twinned and there are all kinds of signs along the way to break up the monotony of that long road.  We have learned much about road design and attention spans and driving while tired.

I doubt that Jesus worried about highway hypnosis when he sent off the disciples into the community.  He didn’t have to give them a list like bring a friend, drink caffeine, rest beforehand and so on.  He did give them a list of what to do, go without any suitcases or credit cards, and if someone dislikes what you said, let it go, don’t hang around trying to convince them.  He knew that people might be challenged, targeted, even attacked for taking care of the vulnerable, the outcast, the lonely, the hurting and the sick.  But he called them to be kind, healing presences anyway. 

The list of oppression is long, isn’t it? Some pretty nasty stuff mentioned in our scripture this morning, possibly what Matthew’s community experienced first hand.  Floggings, betrayals, lawsuits, you name it, they expected it.  And how were they supposed to respond? With one of my all-time favorite Jesus sayings, “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves”  I love that line!  To me it combines a realistic assessment, maybe even a touch of Machiavellian sneaky underhandedness, and yet a commitment and principled dedication to being peaceful and loving.  Jesus knew things wouldn’t be easy, he taught his disciples that working for God’s beloved community, God’s beloved world, would not be easy.  He didn’t sugar-coat it, but he didn’t pull any punches either.  He gave the disciples a clear and honest picture of the cost of discipleship. 

Paul must have learned about this teaching.  He followed up with his famous “suffering leads to endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.  Really, Paul?  Can’t we skip the suffering stuff and go straight to the peace, hope and love stuff?  That’s much more our style after all. 

Just as we can’t skip the long drive to get from Fort McMurray to just about anywhere else, Paul and Jesus suggests that we can’t necessarily skip the hard work of being a disciple to take a short cut to glory.  If we think it’s easy, we are either fooling ourselves or practicing wishful thinking.  One of my favorite literary characters Albus Dumbledor said it this way, “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”  People are looking for easy short cuts to peace and while tactics like mindfulness, meditative music videos on YouTube, apps guaranteed to promote a zen state to the most troubled mind, and a plethora of short videos of everything from cute squirrels to pouring paint promising to calm us down. All this while mental health professionals are saying that more and more people are struggling with high levels of anxiety and depression.  It’s not pretty.  We see the fall out daily.  Westlock has become the centre of a toxic and homophobic campaign targeting the teenagers at the local high school because they want to paint a rainbow cross walk for Pride Month.  I can imagine you folks have had some trauma flashbacks yourselves with all the forest fires we are seeing this year.  I think that a lot of the anxiety and even anger we see is stemming from people having lost a sense of security in the basic assumptions that we have.  Assumptions like we are all kind, nice Canadians, or like we all can live together in peace, respecting each other’s differences.  Or that there will always be enough toilet paper to go around or that we’re better at being polite than Americans are, and the only word Canadians say more than “Eh” is “Sorry”. 

The United Church of Canada is also struggling with times of anxiety and depression.  Rural communities continue to shrink, churches haven’t bounced back to pre-covid numbers, and we are struggling with the effects of inflation.  Many congregations are grieving all that the epidemic cost us.  It’s not easy to be church in these days.  It’s not easy to be anything these days.  Other non-profit organizations are also struggling.  Toastmasters had a lot of clubs close.  Rotary, Lions and other service organizations also lost members.  Some Girl Guide groups have still not restarted.  The library boards are looking for members.  Hospitals and schools saw a lot of baby boomers retire or go on stress leave.  It’s not just congregations.

But congregations do have one thing that helps us when times are tough.  We have a caring network of faith communities across the country from coast to coast, even in the territories and Bermuda.  We have supports and connections and teams trying to figure this out together.  We have faith in a God that is greater than we are.  Our wider church has a new motto which is brilliant at addressing what ails our society.  Deep spirituality, like centering songs, candle lighting, meditative prayers.  Bold discipleship that knows we are strong when we work together and learn together.  And daring justice that finds ways to address inequality, racism, homophobia, and not shy away from it because its seen as too political.  Just as fighting highway hypnosis takes good sleep, avoiding heavy meals, having a buddy, hearing the rumble strips when our cars start to drift, so too being healthy resilient disciples means practicing good self-care, keeping our eye on our end goals and following Jesus’ call to be compassionate and as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.  This is the road to peace, this is the road to a hope and grace that will never disappoint us.  Thanks be to God for such a gift of glory, love and faith to strengthen us for our journeys together.